Beauty and the Beast Jr: A Ladies Date

Last Sunday we headed to JT's fall ball game. This was how the little Ms. was dressed. Ready for the Fall. Pink Boots. And in her Starbucks cup is caramel apple cider. Man I love being her mom.

 After baseball, HeaBug, Auntie Nini and I headed to Millikin High School to watch a Go Fame production of Beauty and The Beast. Our lovely friend KT Jackman, who is just the sweetest girl ever to our Hea Bug, was there with her girl scout troop. Seriously, she just always thinks of HeaBug and passes down her awesome toys and cutie clothes. HeaBug loves her to bits!

She was so excited to see "The Show"!

The girls behind us when we watched the show were in love with HeaBug's reactions to the lines, costumes, songs and characters. At intermission, a woman was talking with Hea and asked her if she wanted to meet the Prince or Gaston. She said, "Not the Beast, he's a little bit scary even though I know that's not really him but maybe Gaston because he's a little bit handsome". They about died over that and a darling Taylor Swift looking gal said she knew Gaston and would be happy to introduce HeaBug to him. After the show, my dear daughter followed this girl all over the auditorium and finally got to see Gaston and then was too shy to take a picture with him. She's just the funniest.

 The sweet girl who played Belle was happy to talk to HeaBug and take a picture. She graciously accepted HeaBug's compliments of her tiara, her dress and her lovely flowers.

Later that evening, HeaBug requested Auntie Nini spin her around... This is actually something of a regular occurrence here.

I quite adore being mommy to this spitfire, sassafras little lady. She's so fun. And I'm so glad that she has such an amazing Auntie to look up to and to play with and to love and be loved by.

JT and Mom run the hill

JT has advanced at AGA! Every six months, the kids are tested on certain skills and depending on which ones they've learned and how many they are able to complete, they can move up a bracket. It's a building block system so they cannot start leaning new skills without having mastered the prerequisites. We're proud of him, he's now a green star! A few weeks ago, it was Ms. Lorena's last day at the gym. My kids LOVE her! Like LOVE. She was HeaBug's first coach when she was an 18 month old mini-tumbler... at the mommy and me level.

JT has been running with me. We decided to tackle Signal Hill together while HeaBug was at gymnastics (about 3 miles), and he did so great. While up top, we had fun with my camera. The shot just below has to be one of my most all time favorite pictures. I just happened to be at the right angle and the sky was magical with the threat of rain and the promise of sunshine all in one afternoon!

We sure do love this little man. He is silly and intense and adventurous and bright and thoughtful and still surprises us. We see so much of ourselves in him. The good and the bad (and a little of the crazy hahaha). It makes us so happy that he enjoys being active and fit and healthy. We are so thankful to be his parents for sure.

We SO Voted: Election Time at BoothOhanaRoots

We are lovers of our country, living an American dream, raising our children in a blessed country of freedom.

Heck yes we vote!

Mr. and Mrs. B do not always see eye to eye on every measure or proposition or candidate. We stress to our children not the importance of WHO you vote for but more that you exercise your RIGHT TO VOTE.

This year, when changing my voter address, I re-registered as part of the American Independent Party.

We encourage everyone to vote. We take our children with us to vote.

We spent the evening of Election Night watching CNN. We had to put them to bed before it was called. When we checked on them during the night, JT woke up and asked who won the election. I love that they felt so intensely involved and connected to this process.

We hope to raise children that will think with an open mind, respect the choices of others, and to be grateful that we have the freedom to vote the way we choose.

REGISTER TO VOTE HERE!

For Family Photos with Mia Reed... The Booth Ohana will travel!

For almost 8 years, we lived across the street from the Reeds. We've watched our families grow and enjoyed being not only neighbors but friends. In the last 6 months, we've both left Jaymills Street. Us for another part of Long Beach and the Reeds to the Central Coast. Mia's creative eye is amazing. She's always happily indulged in our hair brained family shoot ideas. We were excited when we decided to head up to San Luis Obisbo County to visit our friends in there new home and to visit Bradsberry Farms LLC.

It was a three and a half hour ride, thankfully the kids slept much of the ride up. They're good travelers, but we knew it would be a lot to expect them to behave in the car and behave while having their photos taken. Fortunately, they know and love Mia so they enjoyed romping around this awesome farm. It would be amazing to live in a place where you feel completely surrounded by nature, hills, plains, animals... And to have the ocean 15 minutes away, if that. And an In & Out 20 minutes away.

Love Mia!

We had a great time and got a little preview of the magic that Mia captured. Can't wait to see rest of them.

Trick or Treat, Halloween for the B's

Our first Halloween activity was the Trunk or Treat at the school. Last year we did this cramazing maze. ( BTW, Cramazing is my word mash of Crazy+Amazing. ) We did not have the man power to pull it off this year though. Bummer but for once it was nice to show up to an event that I did not assist in planning, help set up, organize, volunteer for or run. We just went, had a nice time and went to sushi after.

Costumes... HeaBug is Merida from Brave.










 JT is Westley from the Princess Bride.

 

Mr and Mrs B as Mary Poppins and Bert. We got a lot of wonderful comments on our costumes. A quick shout out to Breezer who sculpted Westley's fencing foil handle and created the awesome burn wound on his shoulder from liquid latex. She also customized Mary's hat, tie and Bert's chimney sweep broom!

It would not have bee successful without her!

 Trunk or Treat Fun!

The kids loved getting to see their pals and going round and round and round stockpiling the candy.

The lovely and talented CAKESTINA had a Creepy Cakery set up. It was fabulous. Lots of ghoulicious treats! It looked so awesome and professional that people kept getting in line to purchase items! Even though they were just for decoration. Unless you happen to be tight pals with Cakestina herself. Wink Wink.

The next night, we went to a Trunk or Treat at our church. It was awesome and we had a great time. The same night, Breezer and Joanna went to the Long Beach Zombie walk. That's her, with the liquid latex.

We got to carving our pumpkin while sipping sparkling pumpkin/apple cider and eating oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!

 HeaBug's preschool had a trunk or treat the morning of Halloween. It was so cute to see the little ones in their costumes.

We went trick or treating that night. Breezer and Joanna stayed at the house to pass out candy to the mountains of trick or treaters that we were expecting. They didn't come. We hardly got any. I guess there are fall backs to living on a nice, quiet and out of the way street. Not many passers by. She looked awesome with her Dia De Los Muertos makeup though!

(We donned moustaches for trick or treat and by the end of the night, Merida needed Daddy to hold her and wear her wig... because her feet hurt and she was sweaty)

 Kids had a blast trick or treating, we have more candy than we know what to do with....

If you find yourself in the same predicament, consider shipping some candy to our troops. 

Here's the address:

Operation Shoebox

8360 E Highway 25

Belleview, FL 34420